Around the Horn: Tigers sweep Gamecocks

By Hunt Palmer

One weekend can’t erase three.

LSU is still in a brutal situation as far as the postseason is concerned. Part of this team’s story is strength of schedule. The first four teams on the conference docket weren’t very good. In hindsight, LSU needed to be better than 6-6 against Vanderbilt, Oklahoma, Kentucky and Tennessee. That group is 44-52 in SEC play and offered LSU a chance to get off to a good start. That didn’t happen.

South Carolina offered LSU a chance at a sweep, and the Tigers took it.

There were absolutely positives. William Schmidt worked deeper into Friday’s game than he has in any SEC weekend. The young hitters continued to produce. Defensively, LSU was sound. It was a good weekend of baseball. The level of competition simply has to be acknowledged.

STRONG STARTS

Last weekend, I only counted Schmidt’s four innings when tallying “starters’ innings”. Marcos Paz and Gavin Guidry have been relievers much of the season, and the point I was making stood up. LSU asked too much of the back half of its pitching staff in Starkville.

That wasn’t true over this weekend. Schmidt and Paz hurled their longest SEC outings, and Zac Cowan was excellent on Sunday. Those three combined to work 17 of the 27 innings in the sweep. That lightens the load on everyone else.

LSU only needed four relievers, and all four were great. Grant Fontenot, Deven Sheerin, Santiago Garcia and Guidry combined to work 10 innings of two-run baseball. They allowed seven hits and three walks while striking out 10.

No one pitched twice. That’s a manageable workload.

Schmidt only worked to four three-ball counts in six innings. He was consistently ahead and trusted his fastball early in counts. He got eight ground ball outs to go with his seven strikeouts. That’s 15 of 18 outs without any real chance of slugging. Great work.

Paz was at his best as a Tiger. He only allowed one hit over five innings while striking out eight. The slider was sharp, and the fastball sat at 95.

Cowan did what he does. He only allowed one three-ball count and fired strike one to 15 of the 20 batters he faced. There was very little hard contact.

On the weekend, South Carolina was 15-for-94 (.160) and only had three hits in 18 tries with runners in scoring position. That’s a .167 average. They only hit one homer and totaled four extra base hits.

It’s a horrible offense that LSU made look horrible.

BRAUN ON BASE

I’m not sure I’ve seen a more impactful two-hit weekend than what Mason Braun put together.

Despite his only recording the pair of hits, he scored four runs and drove in three. One of the hits was a homer on Saturday, and he had a sacrifice fly. He also walked six times from the leadoff spot.

Braun is just a stellar hitter with a keen eye and feel for the barrel. He’s only going to get better.

CADE IS CRUSHING

This is going to end up being a fantastic sophomore season for Cade Arrambide.

He’s now hitting .320 with 14 home runs after a 7-for-13 (.538) weekend that included a homer and four runs driven in. In a season where many of the Tigers produced closer to their floor than their ceiling, Arrambide has blossomed into a force in conference play.

The four-homer game was an outlier, but it got LSU a series win on the road. He’s been consistent and impactful with the bat really all season. To become a truly complete player, he’ll have to tighten up defensively and cut down on the strikeouts. That in mind, he’s having an extremely productive season.

POSTSEASON PICTURE

This weekend kept LSU alive. But the Tigers are still in a bad spot. They need at least four more league wins, and none of the next six will come easy.

As I wrote above, the work needed to be done early in the league schedule, and it wasn’t. Still, this weekend was a positive. The freshmen combined for 13 hits and 14 runs over the weekend. Arrambide and Schmidt were good. So was Paz. That’s likely the nucleus for next season.

This one isn’t over, and it could have been. One loss would have been a body blow, and a second would have been the knockout. LSU is still standing headed to Athens.